FlightAware is an incredible mashup of radar data, air traffic controller records, flight plans, and maps. Like any great mashup, it provides the public with a new window into an opaque room, and usage has exploded—often in surprising ways. But this is no ordinary mashup; FlightAware sucks in more than 1GB of new data every day, tracking almost every commercial flight in the US almost in real-time, and maintaining a historical database that now tops 60 million flights.

This is a reduced image of flights surrounding Bradley International Airport in my home state.

And here's a friend of mine's flight out of there today as he heads off to Minn/StPaul International on business.